A Letter to V. A. Karpinsky[1]

Published:First published in 1929 inLenin Miscellany XI.

      Written on December 26, 1916 (January 8, 1917).

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 23,

      pages217-219.Translated:M. S. Levin, The Late Joe Fineberg and and OthersTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2002

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

DearComrades!

Iam sending you amost importantcommunication.

Discussit and pass it on to
Brilliant[2]and Guilbeaux: then we shall knowwhomthey
support andwhothey are: cowards or men capable of fighting.

Thewholestruggle will now be shifted here.

Letme know how they reacted and if there are any chances of publishing
a protest or an open letter.

Weshould take advantage of the fact thatNameenjoys
undisputed authority in French Switzerland.

Bestwishes, Yours

TheExecutive (Parteivorstand) of the Swiss Socialist Party met in
Zurich on Sunday, January 7, 1917.

Itadopted a disgraceful decision—to postpone indefinitely the party
congress, which was to have met in Berne on February 11, 1917 for the
express purpose of discussing the war issue. The excuse: the need to fight
the high cost of living; the workers are not yet ready; there was no
unanimity in the commission, arid similar excuses that are an outright
insult to the party. (Two drafts have already been drawn up in the
commission andpublished confidentially: one,againstfatherland defence, prepared by Affolter, Nobs, Schmid, Naine and Graber;
the other,forfatherland defence, prepared by
G. Muller. Pflüger,Huberand Klöti.)

TheJanuary 7 meeting was very stormy.Grimmled the Rights,
i.e., the opportunists, i.e., the nationalists, shouting the most vile
things against the “foreigners”, againsttheyouth, accusing them of a “split” (!!!), and so on. Naine,
Platten, Nobs and Münzenbergfirmlyopposed postponing the
congress. Name told Grimm outright that he was destroying himself as an
“international secretary”!

Adoptionof this decision signifies complete betrayal by Grimm and is
aninsult to the partyon the part of the opportunist leaders, the
social-nationalists. TheentireZimmerwald-Kienthal group and
action have beenfactuallyreduced to an empty phrase by a handful
of leaders (Grimm included) who threaten to resign (sic!!)  if
defence of the fatherland is rejected. They are determinednot to
allowthis issue to be discussed by the party “mob” until the end of
the war. TheGrütlianer[3](January 4 and 8) is speaking thetruthand is givingthisparty a slap in the face.

Thewhole struggle of the Left, the whole struggleforZimmerwald and Kienthal, has now been shifted to other ground: struggle
against this gang of leaders defiling the party. We must everywhere rally
the Left and discuss methods of struggle. Hurry!

Wouldnot the best method be (not a minute must be lost) to secure
immediate adoption in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Geneva of protest resolutions,
plus open letters to Name, and publish them without delay? There can be no
doubt that the “leaders” will bring every lever into motion to prevent
protests appearing in the press.

Theopen letter should frankly state everything recounted here and
square]y put the question:
(1) Does Name refute these facts?
(2) Does he consider itpermissible, in a democratic party of
socialists, for the Executive to repeal congress
decisions?—(3)Permissibleto hide from the party the way the
betrayers of socialism voted at the meeting of January 7, 1917, and thespeechesthey made
there?—(4)Permissibleto accept a chairman of the International
Socialist Commit tee (Grimm) who combines Left phrases withassistanceto the Swiss nationalists, opponents of Zimmerwald,
“fatherland defenders” Pflüger,Huberand Co., in virtuallydisruptingthe Zimmerwald
decisions?—(5) Permissible to abuse, in theBerner Tagwacht, the
German social-patriots, whilesecretlyhelping the Swiss
social-patriots?  etc.

Irepeat: this will not be allowed to appear in the news papers. That
is clear. Publication of an open letter to Name on behalf of one or another
group is the best method. If that is possible, lose no time and reply
without delay.

[1]Thisletter was written in Zurich and sent to V. A. Karpinsky in Geneva. It
was meant for discussion in R.S.D.L.P. groups abroad.

[2]Brilliant—G. Y. Sokolnikov (1888–1939), joined the Party in
1905.  During the war contributed to Trotsky’s paperNashe Slovo(Our Word).

[3]Grütlianer—organ of the Swiss bourgeois-reformist
Grütli-Verein; founded in Zurich in 1851. Became a social-chauvinist
mouthpiece during the war. Lenin described it as the organ of “the
consistent and avowed servants of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement”.